Icecap 3K Gyre?

[el aguila]

I have a 70G that I setup a couple of years ago with the idea of putting seahorses in. I put in the smaller Tunze 6208 mini wave box on low and liked the flow/wave movement. Unfortunately the pump has become too noisy to run it.

I’m hoping to put seahorses in sometime next year.

Trying to come up with a replacement. I’ve never owned a gyre type pump, but was wondering if the IceCap 3K Gyre would work in a seahorse tank, if you turned the pump way down?

 

[vlangel]

Although I am unfamiliar with any gyre pumps there are 2 main things to consider when keeping seahorses. The first is: can they hitch to any part of the pump where a moving part (such as an impellor) can damage or cut their tail? A cut on a seahorse's tail can be deadly as infection can quickly set in and kill the pony.

The second is: does their tank have areas of fast, moderate and slow flow? It is old school thinking that seahorses can not handle any fast flow. You do not want it so fast that they can be blown into rock and be injured, but they are stronger swimmers than most folks think. They are not endurance swimmers however so they need lower flow areas to hitch when they are done body surfing the current. Their respiration needs however dictate that under no circumstance should there be areas of no flow in their tank. That can cause serious respiratory stress.

So if the gyre can meet those 2 criteria then it should be a good choice.

 

[rayjay]

If the tails don't get through the screening that fits over the output then you should be OK as long as the directed flow won't hurl the seahorses against something solid.

 

[DSC reef]

The ice cap gyre would be fine, they come with a netting to go over the pump. It's really a great pump and produces a nice distributed flow through the tank.